How Vietnam's new leader could strengthen ties to China

Nestled in Hanoi’s leafy French Quarter, under the shadow of its
neoclassical Opera House, is a tiny gallery that exclusively stocks Vietnamese
propaganda art.

The interior is piled high with posters—all square jaws, oversize clenched
fists and primary colors—supporting the revolutionary hero Ho Chi Minh, who
founded the Communist Party and led the resistance to French and American
forces during the 1950s and ’60s. Slogans rouse patriots to “Remember Uncle Ho
on this victorious day” and “Crush the Yankee imperialists.”

“Today Vietnam has a new President,” says Phan Duk, who opened the gallery
five years ago. “But I forget his name.” That’s not unusual. Unlike Ho,
Vietnam’s recent leaders have shied from the limelight. For almost half a
century, they have jettisoned the cult of personality in favor of ruling from
the shadows, with power shared between several top government roles.

That changed on Oct. 23 when Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu
Trong also assumed the role of President, after the incumbent died in
September. In a televised ceremony, the silver-haired Trong, 74, vowed to be
“absolutely loyal to the nation, people and the constitution.” His
ascent—-confirmed by 99.8% of lawmakers, with just one token dissenter—makes
him the first person to hold both titles since Ho in the 1960s. Of Vietnam’s
traditional “four-pillar” top positions designed to diffuse power, Trong, a
Hanoi native who became General Secretary in 2011, now holds half.

Trong, a party ideologue, has close ties with communist leaders in China,
whose regional influence has grown as its $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative
has helped fund infra-structure projects in countries across Asia and beyond.
Washington’s influence on the region, by contrast, has waned under President
Donald Trump, especially after he withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) intended to reduce regional reliance on Beijing.

Vietnam is playing a growing role in the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy to
counter Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s attempt to recapture “center stage in the
world.” In October, en route to Vietnam for his second visit this year, Defense
Secretary Jim Mattis condemned Beijing’s “predatory economic behavior” against
smaller nations. But Trump’s “America first” approach to foreign policy has
weakened regional alliances. “Standing up to China is even more difficult for
Vietnam under Trump than it has been,” says Carlyle Thayer, emeritus professor
at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

Although Vietnam’s economy is among the best performing in Asia, with GDP up
6.8% year on year in the second quarter of 2018, it relies heavily on trade
with China. Bilateral trade is predicted to reach $100 billion, according to
Vietnamese state media. Last year it had a $22.76 billion trade deficit with
China, one that the TPP would have helped offset. Yet after thousands of years
of subjugation, a virulent Sinophobia grips most of Vietnamese society. The two
nations last fought a border war in 1979. Animosity has swelled alongside
China’s growing assertiveness, especially over competing claims in the South
China Sea.

With that in mind, whether Washington can recruit Hanoi to its cause is a
bellwether for other countries in the region seeking to balance China’s rise by
reinforcing ties with the world’s pre-eminent superpower.

Back in 2016, former U.S. President Barack Obama achieved a public relations
coup when he sat down at a humble Hanoi restaurant with late celebrity chef
Anthony Bourdain for bun cha, a fragrant noodle dish of grilled pork belly.
Today the backroom table where they ate is enshrined in a glass cube, and
“Combo Obama”—including a Hanoi beer—is the top choice on the menu.

The paradox of Vietnam is that its leaders see Beijing’s authoritarianism as
a governance model to replicate while its people remain pathologically wary of
China’s ambitions, preferring better relations with the West. Obama’s visit and
lifting of a ban on selling American weaponry to Hanoi in May 2016 helped boost
rapprochement between the former foes. On March 5, Vietnam welcomed the first
U.S. aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, to dock since the end of the
Vietnam War. Washington is also spending hundreds of millions of dollars on
cleanup programs for contamination caused by Agent Orange.

Vietnam is also rebranding itself as a Western-friendly tech hub. At a
co-working space in central Hanoi, dozens of tech and media workers hammer at
laptops, flanked by dwarf papaya and French windows. Here, in what some call
the “Silicon Valley of Southeast Asia,” programmers can be hired for a fifth of
the cost of the U.S. or Singapore. According to government figures, the country
attracted $35.88 billion in foreign direct investment capital last year, up 44%
from 2016.

This outside investment is at risk, however, as a new cybersecurity law next
year will tighten control of tech companies, requiring firms like Facebook and
Google to store customers’ personal data locally, sparking privacy concerns. It
mirrors a law already introduced in China, showing that Vietnamese policymakers
are often happy to follow Beijing’s authoritarian path. Trong in particular
values better ties with China. He has sent young cadres to China for exchange
programs, and has emulated Xi by pursuing a sweeping anti-corruption campaign,
which has netted top figures from business, the military and within the
Communist Party.

Vietnam’s human-rights record also echoes China’s approach to dissent.
According to Human Rights Watch, Vietnam was jailing at least 119 prisoners of
conscience as of January. In October, dissident blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh,
known as Mother Mushroom, was forced into exile in the U.S. after being
incarcerated for two years.“How can I think the new President will give us more
freedom?” asks dissident singer Mai Khoi, who has been harassed and evicted
because of her antigovernment lyrics. “If we get more freedom, it’s only
because we fight for it.”

Yet the issue that seems to bring people onto the street is still perceived
encroachment on sovereignty by China. William Nguyen, 33, a Yale graduate from
Texas, was arrested June 10 in Ho Chi Minh City at a protest against 99-year
leases in special economic zones likely to be dominated by Chinese firms. For
five weeks, he was held in the infamous Chi Hoa Prison, consisting of eight
cellblocks circling a central courtyard with a single 20-m-high watchtower. “It
was a seven-hour rotation of angry men screaming,” Nguyen tells TIME of his
initial two-day interrogation, arms and feet shackled to a metal bar, during
which he was allowed up only for toilet breaks and meals.

Vietnam has never rolled over when its sovereignty has been challenged. It
has been particularly outspoken when it comes to Beijing’s militarization of
rocks and reefs in the strategic South China Sea, through which passes almost a
third of all maritime trade. Violent demonstrations swept Vietnam in 2014
following China’s deployment of an oil rig in the disputed waters, with at
least 21 deaths as some 100,000 protesters targeted Chinese-owned businesses.
These disputed waters are an area where Hanoi’s priority aligns clearly with
Washington’s. “We remain highly concerned with continued militarization of
features in the South China Sea,” Mattis told reporters on his flight to Ho Chi
Minh City.

Elsewhere in Vietnam’s foreign policy, however, there are hurdles to
rapprochement with the U.S. Vietnam is governed by the “three no’s” policy: no
military alliances, no foreign bases in Vietnam and no reliance on another
country for its defense. It has also mainly purchased Russian arms since the
Cold War and in September placed a $1 billion order for assorted weaponry.

This puts Vietnam in contravention of the 2017 Countering America’s
Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which is aimed chiefly at penalizing the
Kremlin over the Ukraine and Syria conflicts and the 2016 U.S. election. But in
line with its growing strategic importance, Hanoi was granted a waiver (as were
other U.S.-friendly nations, like Indonesia and India). Still, Vietnam nixed
joint exercises between its navy and the U.S. Marine Corps, ostensibly in
reaction to Washington’s criticism of the deal.

“Vietnam welcomes the U.S. taking a stronger line with China but can’t stand
shoulder to shoulder with us,” says a senior U.S. diplomat, speaking to TIME on
condition of anonymity. “Vietnam can never be an American ally.”

That doesn’t resonate with gallery owner Duk, who only sees young Vietnamese
who loathe China and want to study in the West. “Only foreigners buy these
posters now,” he says with a shrug. “Not even old people want to remember this
history.” But for the Communist Party, the key strategy articulated in the
posters remains constant: self-reliance, keeping both friend and foe at arm’s
length. That is unlikely to change under Trong. The system stays in place even
as its art fades away.